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IBM's Question-Answering System "Watson" Revisited
religious freak writes "IBM has created and made the question answering algorithm, Watson, available online. Watson has competed in and won a majority of (mock) matches against humans in Jeopardy. Watson does not connect to the Internet to answer his questions, but rather seeks answers using many different algorithms then employs a ranking algorithm to choose the best answer." We mentioned Watson last year as well.
This is a given, since there aren't even any AIs yet, so there could be no unbeatable AIs.
I admit that as a programmer this is a bit of a pet peeve of mine. But people: computers are NOT "intelligent". At all. They do what they do by performing the same specific instructions over and over and over again. That's what computers are good at. Granted, they do more complex things today, but that's just due to clever programming and the ability to do many more instructions many times faster than before (i.e., better hardware and software). But that's just quantity. What it lacks is quality. No matter how clever a combination of processors and program may seem at some specific task, it totally lacks the quality we call "intelligence". To call anything running on a computer today "intelligent" is to undermine the word itself. You might as well call a rock an airplane.
Researchers in this field 20 years ago would have been appalled at what people today refer to as "AI". Of course they would also be appalled at the lack of progress in that same field, but that's another matter.
I am not pointing fingers at the posters here. They are just using "AI" in the way it has become commonly used. But that is an erroneous use and I would be happy to see the practice stop. It gives people the wrong idea.
If we (erroneously) call what occurs today "intelligent", then if something ever really did become intelligent, what would we call it?
To call anything running on a computer today "intelligent" is to undermine the word itself. You might as well call a rock an airplane.
I didn't realize "intelligent" had such a clear definition that you could really say anything meaningful about whether a machine was "intelligent" or not.
If we (erroneously) call what occurs today "intelligent", then if something ever really did become intelligent, what would we call it?
I don't know.. perhaps we'd make a bit of progress and realize that "intelligence" isn't some nice single concept to just nail down like mass that we can all agree on what is is and isn't. We might even come up with 10 very different words to describe something we might now use the word intelligence about, since we might actually have a better grasp on what it actually is. If you ask me, intelligence is more about human ego than any real hard definitions. In many peoples minds computers can never be intelligent because it would bring our self opinions down a notch or two. That's why many people were sooo upset about Kasparov getting schooled by Deep Blue 10+ years ago, and then made up a bunch of excuses why it wasn't fair.
Whether a machine "intelligently" plays Chess, or is "intelligent" is a stupid question. What's more interesting is how we might accomplish the same task in different ways than our brains might do so. 40 years ago nobody ever thought a computer could be programmed to play even a decent game of chess. These days it's surpassed us. I think that says more about what we think is "intelligent" than anything else.
AccountKiller
I don't know.. perhaps we'd make a bit of progress and realize that "intelligence" isn't some nice single concept to just nail down like mass that we can all agree on what is is and isn't. We might even come up with 10 very different words to describe something we might now use the word intelligence about, since we might actually have a better grasp on what it actually is. If you ask me, intelligence is more about human ego than any real hard definitions. In many peoples minds computers can never be intelligent because it would bring our self opinions down a notch or two. That's why many people were sooo upset about Kasparov getting schooled by Deep Blue 10+ years ago, and then made up a bunch of excuses why it wasn't fair.
How convenient! A theory about intelligence which means that we have actually already created AI!
Get back to work!
I don't care for the show myself, but don't forget about the nonlinear utility function of money. As an illustration, given that I'm comfortable but not wealthy:
If given a choice between a guaranteed $400 and a 50-50 shot at $1,000, I'd choose the latter. The money wouldn't have a major impact on my life, so I'd go for the option with the best expected return.
If given a choice between a guaranteed $400,000 and a 50-50 shot at $1,000,000, I'd take the guaranteed $400,000, even though the expected return of the latter situation is $500,000. $400,000 would give me a substantial amount of freedom and security. An additional $600,000 beyond that would be nice but would provide relatively few benefits compared to the initial $400,000.
Now, if I were already a millionaire, I'd most likely choose the 50-50 shot at $1,000,000.
I killed it, too, but mainly because of the rules of the game in which I get first crack at the answer.
Still, I think the point is that it's impressive the number of questions it gets right. I really didn't miss very many. My mental tally had it getting around 70% or so, which is pretty damn good. I got around 80%, but again, I had first crack at the answer, so Watson could have only possibly scored around 20% of the answers at best. If it tallied your score and Watson's score without actually competing head-to-head, that probably would have been a more interesting challenge. Keep in mind that as a computer, if the programmers chose to do so, they could probably have Watson answering everything pretty much simultaneously. Also, Jeopardy! is a lot about timing, hitting that button as soon as the buttons are unlocked, so in that respect, Watson probably really could kick ass in that its reaction time will always be faster than yours.
Just because I won doesn't make the technology not interesting or significant. Frankly, I'm impressed that it's even able to answer 20% of the questions expressed in natural language correctly.
The real issue is that AI research has mainly discovered that Intelligence is not well defined, and everything we thought was difficult (e.g. Playing chess) is relatively easy, and everything we thought was easy (e.g. Understanding Human Language) is horrifically difficult
A human child can walk, see interact and understand it's environment, hold a conversation ... none of these can be done even more than adequately by machines .. (Walking is ahead of the rest so far) but a cheap chess computer can beat most people, including most Grand Masters the majority of the time
Puteulanus fenestra mortis
Bite me, Dijkhead. I happen to think both questions are fucking fascinating.